The Organ

This section would not be complete without some notes of the School Organ (latterly sometimes called Freddy's Organ - Fred Pointer)

THE ORGAN The organ is a very historic instrument, with part of its beginnings in the eighteenth century. As with many other instruments, it has been moved and rebuilt many times over the last 150 years.

The organ was initially built as a four-manual by Bishop & Son in 1883 for the residence of W.J. Birkbeck, 221 Brompton Road, London. (His other residences were at Stratton Strawless Hall and in Thorpe St Andrew). The two ranks of a Snetzler bureau organ (c1760) were later incorporated (Great [now Choir] Stopped Diapason and Choir Open Diapason [now the Flageolet on the Swell]). After being moved to two more houses in London, on the death of Birkbeck in 1916 his younger son took it to Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, where he was an officer in the Royal Flying Corps.

Its next move was to Ely, in 1919, where it stood initially in the house of the Organist (Noel Ponsonby, a relation of Birckbeck jnr), but was later moved into the north side of the Presbytery of the Cathedral (the main organ being out of use), as there was a scarcity of fuel for the gas plant which blew it.

When Ponsonby became Organist of Christchurch, Oxford in 1926, he took it with him, and it was later erected in St John’s College, where it stood on the north side of the chapel.

In 1936 it was put up for sale by St John’s College, and it was purchased for St Michael’s Church, Booton, (Norfolk), where parochial disagreement eventually caused its removal in 1938. (Part of the organ loft now, supposedly, forms the front of the west gallery in St Michael Whitwell, one of the Reepham churches).

Its current home is in the Assembly Hall (now Library) of the Paston School, North Walsham. The Vicar of Booton, Willis Feast, was an old boy of the school, and when the organ was removed from Booton in 1938, he gave it to the School. The opening recital, on 16th June 1938, was given by Dr Heathcote Statham, Organist of Norwich Cathedral.

In 1959 it was rebuilt by Williamson & Hyatt of Trunch as a 3-manual in memory of Percival Pickford, Headmaster 1922-46 (himself an organist). When installed, it was still a four-manual, played with the organist’s back to the hall; in this rebuild, the console was set to one side. The reduction to three manuals was undertaken on the advice of Sir Thomas Armstrong, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music and brother-in-law of Kenneth Marshall, Headmaster at the time. Sir Thomas also gave the opening recital, on Speech Day in July 1960. The organ is now no longer used on a regular basis.